I have heard of at least three local stories of women losing their babies in the last 24 hours. Their Christmas season will ever more be colored by trauma and loss. One would like to think of this as a season of joy, love and laughter, but there are so many ghosts of Christmas past haunting many of us that it's sometimes hard to feel the joy or want to laugh. Sometimes, it's even hard to care. My husband's mother was the spirit of Christmas for him, yet she died a week before the holiday. Every Christmas since has been dimmed by this loss, and that was 20 years ago or more. And the loss doesn't have to occur during the season to cast a shadow on every holiday for years to come. I mentioned this holiday issue in my last blog.
For the first four years after Allie's loss, I felt a compulsion to reach out to people, to find as many people as possible I could serve and for whom I could buy Christmas gifts. I wanted to help people have a better holiday, but almost more, I wanted to survive the holiday season without my baby, with a silence where there should be laughter of my third child. And it helped. It carried me through to New Years. And for Christmas every year for the rest of my life, I will fill a jar for my angels as their gift from me, a jar with all the service we as a family have done throughout the holidays and the year. We read each slip on Christmas in place of a little five-year-old and her younger siblings opening dolls or bears It makes for a meaningful climax after the present unwrapping is done.
I still reach out and help, but it's more for others now. I no longer cry as much when I hear songs about angels and babies, though occasionally, tears still come. I still identify most with Christmas songs about the experience of motherhood, like "Mary Did You Know," Amy Grant's "Breath of Heaven," and "What Child Is This?" I also like "Christmas Shoes" because it starts to reach the sadness and joy of the season. Even though I've heard them multiple times, I often cry mourning or healing tears on hearing them.
I found a fairly new song yesterday that makes me cry just to think about it. I can't mention its name without crying, but it's a good kind of tears, healing tears. The song moved me in a way most Christmas songs don't. And I don't even generally listen to country. It's called "Broken Hearts like Mine" by Cherie Call. It hits on the pain of the season for those in mourning, but also on the healing nature of the reason for the season. I thought I'd share it with those out there who may experience the holiday through a similar lens of mourning. The song is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pGNFXCq2pY I know we all can find healing through Him. That was part of the purpose for his atonement and resurrection, was to understand our pain and help us heal. We just need to reach out, and he will be there for all of us. I wish everyone, in spite of the pain, a joyous or at least peaceful season.
